


Illegally Blonde

by TooFewTrueBlue



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Legally Blonde Fusion, Attempt at Humor, Bruce Wayne is an okay parent, Female Friendship, Multi, Past Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, Slow Burn, hes trying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:40:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooFewTrueBlue/pseuds/TooFewTrueBlue
Summary: “'Not serious enough', since when is Robin serious? He acts like it's so tough. Please, I could be robin.” She paused, now that was an idea. “I could totally be Robin.”Legally Blonde au/semi war games rewrite because Stephanie Brown deserves the worldHe gaped at her, "You... broke into the Batcave?"Stephanie just grinned, "What? Like its hard?"
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

“So, the reason I wanted to come here tonight was to discuss our future,” Tim looked so nervous, sat across from her fiddling with the entirely too fancy napkins, it was cute. The restaurant was one of the nicest Stephanie had ever been to, the bathroom probably had washcloths instead of paper towels, he was really pulling out all the stops.

“And I am fully amenable to that discussion,” she said, as if she didn’t already know exactly where this conversation was going.

“Good, well you know how we’re having a lot of fun now,” Tim was having a hard time looking her in the eye. It was flattering that she still made him flustered even after all this time.

“Yeah.”

“But things are changing. The titans are really growing as a team but so are the threats we’re facing, things are getting serious.”

“Ofcourse.” She wondered if she should alter her costume to include a T on it. Nah, that would look stupid. 

“My family expects a lot from me-”

“They do?”

He paused with a look of minor panic for a moment, “I meant Bruce. Or both? I mean, my dad expects things of me too. I’m going to be taking over Drake enterprises some day and maybe Wayne enterprises too at this rate. Between that and…” he stopped as a waiter passed by their table, “My night job, I have a lot of serious responsibilities to take on so I need to stop messing around.”

He was gonna drag this out forever wasn't he? Was it really that hard to ask a girl to move in? She took pity on him and reached out to clasp his hand in hers, “Tim-”

“I think we should break up.”

“WHAT?” 

“I’ve just been thinking about it and I think it'd be for the best.” 

“You’re breaking up with me?” She was still holding his hand, too shocked to even register the touch. He gently removed her hand and placed it on the table, “I thought you were- that we- Why?”

“I’m going to be a CEO, a leader,” he seemed to flail for a moment, looking around as if the chicken salad had the words he needed to explain himself, “I need a Lois Lane, not a Cat Grant.” 

What the fuck was  _ that _ supposed to mean? “You’re breaking up with me because… I’m too blond?!?

“That's not entirely-”

“Then what? My boobs are too big?” She shouted. Yes, she was aware she was causing a scene. No, she did not care. 

Tim looked vaguely mortified, his face in his hands, “Steph, no, your boobs are fine.”

“So when you said you loved me that was just ‘messing around’? Everything we’ve been through together, that was just ‘messing around’? 

“No of course not! It's just- you have no idea the pressure I’m under. What I do is dangerous-”

“I can handle dangerous.”

“Not so loud, geeze,” He hushed her, leaning forward in his chair, “Come on Steph, you’re in way over your head here. I appreciate how much you’ve helped us but at the end of the day you’re practically a civilian. We’ve had a lot of fun together but it's time to grow up.”

She’d heard enough, fuck this. Stephanie pushed away from the table with enough force to make the silverware clatter and the glasses teeter dangerously. She was vaguely aware of the tears running down her cheeks and the fancy people staring as she marched towards the door.

“Steph, wait! I still have to pay for this!”

She was gone. Outside, the night was as cold and damp as all nights in Gotham. She shivered in her sleeveless pink dress, her cardigan abandoned at the restaurant's coat check, but she kept walking. Tim would come after her, she knew. He’d give her his jacket, apologize, and offer to drive her home because he was a gentleman like that. She should let him. It was a long walk home, afterall… in Gotham, after dark. But fuck that, she was up to date on her tetnis shots and Gotham was her city too. Tim could boast about having every road and route memorized but Stephanie Brown was born here. She'd been running these streets when Tim was still learning to walk. She slipped off her heels, turned down an alley, and disappeared into the labyrinthine city. 

*** 

Stephanie was awoken from her third depression nap of the day by someone banging on her door. She pulled a blanket over her head to block out the sound.

“Steph open the fucking door or I’m taking it off its hinges!” 

Stephanie burrowed further into the couch cushions, “Go away Harper.”

“It's been a week! You can't mope in there forever!”

“Wanna bet? I’m the master moper. I can keep this up for months.”

Harper sighed, “I’m getting my screwdriver.”

Harper wasn't bluffing. Stephanie's mom was gonna be pissed if she came back to find they no longer had a door.  _ Ugh.  _ With herculean effort she rolled to her feet and shuffled across the apartment, dragging her blanket cocoon with her. She opened the door to reveal the one and only Harper Row, brandishing a screwdriver with deadly intent. Harper did not look at all impressed as she gave her a once over, taking in her greasy hair, and sweatpants, raising a sharp eyebrow as she recognised Tim’s sweater. Stephanie just tightened her cloak of blankets and glared.

“Alright, it's cheering up time, I brought goodies.” She pushed past Steph into the apartment slinging a backpack off her shoulder. 

Stephanie followed her with a wine, “I don't want to cheer up, just let me wallow in peace.” She face planted back onto the couch to resume being a miserable lump.

“Dramatic much?” Harper sat on the arm of the couch and poked her blanket heap, “Come on, what's the one thing that always makes us feel better?”

“Cunnilingus?” she asked mournfully. 

“No, the thing after that.”

Stephanie was drawing a blank. 

“Homemade face masks and movies where women commit murder.” Steph peaked at her over the blankets, Harper was grinning. “I also have toaster waffles.” 

“Okay, that sounds pretty good.” She made room for her on the couch.

***

They finished Thelma and Louise and were queuing up 9 To 5 to play next when Harper finally asked. 

“I know I'm supposed to be distracting you from him but what even happened with you two? I thought you were gonna follow him everywhere? Join the Titans, move in with him, have his masked vigilante babies.”

Steph threw her arms up, “So did I! I don't know what happened! One minute everything seems great and the next he's saying he needs someone more-” her voice cracked on the words and she slouched down in her seat, “more serious.”

“What kind of bullshit reason is that? You’ve gone toe to toe with some of the nastiest fuckers Gotham has to offer.”

“Right?” Maybe it was the movie they'd just watched or having her friends support but Stephanie was over moping, she was pissed. “Who does he think he is? Just because he has some fancy training.”

“Trust fund baby,” Harper said emphatically, egging Steph on. 

“Exactly!” she scoffed, “ _Not serious enough_ , since when is Robin serious? He acts like it's so tough. Please, I could be robin.” She paused, now that was an idea. “I could totally be Robin.”

“Hell yeah!” Harper said, grabbing a handful of chips. 

“I’ll need a new costume.”

“Wait wha-?” Harper nearly choked, “Hold on, are you serious?”

“I AM serious,” she half yelled, “at least, I will be.” She bolted up to look Harper in the eye. “Look, Robins off galavanting around with the Teen Titans which means the big bat is all on his lonesome. I’ll convince Batman to take me on as Robin, he’ll train me, and I’ll prove that I can be serious, I’ll prove that I can handle it! The Titans will demand that I join them and Robin will have no choice but to admit that he was wrong and beg for me to take him back!” 

Harper looked at her hesitantly. “Okay… there are some parts of that plan that may need a little work. Like how are you going to convince Batman?”

“I’ll just do what Robin did and break into the Batcave.”

Harper spluttered, “Oh yeah sure, just break into the Batcave, no problem, piece of cake. While you do that, I’ll go challenge Superman to arm wrestle, call up Joker and ask him to come to my birthday party, ask Lex Luthor if he wants to donate to charity. Great plan.”

“Please, breaking and entering was like the first thing I learned how to do as Spoiler.”

“Do you even know where the Batcave is?” 

“No,” Steph paused, her friend had a point there, “but I do know the bat’s secret ID and I’ve got a hunch.”

Harper stared at her, unsure whether to be scared or impressed. “Fuck alright, lets get you a new costume.”


	2. Chapter 2

Operation Rockin Robin was go! Step one: find the Batcave. 

She’d put money on it being on the Wayne estate somewhere. Tim had taken her to visit the mansion a handful of times but her main takeaway from those visits had been that the place was huge and felt more like a museum than a house. The satellite view on google maps didn't tell her much either aside from that it'd have to be underground. He’d need some way to come and go in the batmobile without being seen too. Tunnels maybe? They’d have to let out somewhere. She zoomed in and squinted at the grainy image, scanning for anything that looked off. There was a trail of slightly lighter colored pixels over on the other side of the big hill she’d once heard Tim call a mountain. It wasn’t labeled as a road or anything but it was her best bet. 

That bet paid off when she got there in person and found a neat little dirt road leading up the hill. It was nearly impossible to spot from the main road, overgrown, and uneven, but the two tire treads that traced it were unmistakably recent. 

Step two: get into the Batcave.

Stephanie did not know Bruce Wayne particularly well. Sure, he’d saved her once or twice and she knew he was more of a father to Tim than his actual dad, but most of their actual interactions had consisted of him yelling at her to stop whatever she was doing and her ignoring him. If there was one thing she knew about Bruce Wayne though, it was that he was insanely paranoid. She had no doubt the entire perimeter of his property was lined with booby traps and enough spyware to make James Bond jealous. Luckily she had the best best friend in the entire world, Harper Row. 

“Okay I think I’ve got it to work. It's basically a mini EMP, it'll knock out anything electronic in a ten foot radius for a few seconds, just long enough for you to run past. It’ll look just like a blip in the system. If anyones paying attention it’ll be pretty obvious but it shouldn’t trigger any automatic alarms.” She held out the small device, it had required the noble sacrifices of several TV remotes and a printer but it was worth it. 

“You’re a freaking genius! What's it called?”

“The invisibility cloak.” 

“Nerd.” 

Stephanie braced herself, she pressed the button, and ran. There was no way to tell if it had worked but she didn’t stop until she was well out of sight of the property line. Then it was just a matter of stealthing up the dirt road, a task that would have been a lot easier if she wasn't dressed like a traffic light. She missed the eggplant purple already.

*** 

Making the costume had been much harder than she’d expected, mostly because the two girls barely had $10 between them. They’d nearly emptied out her entire closet with no luck. 

“How do I not own any red? I like red!”

Harper flopped back onto the clothes covered bed in defeat, “Well, where'd you get your spoiler costume?”

“The Spoiler costume was easy, it's just leggings, an old gymnastics leotard, a grim reaper halloween cloak, various sports gear I stole from school and a fuckton of fabric paint. The boots were probably the hardest part. Good boots are expensive! But I lucked out and found a super comfortable pair at the thrift store.” 

“You can probably reuse the boots and your toolbelt. Leggings are easy. The top is gonna be harder.”

“Yeah, Robin’s is bulletproof.”

Harper whistles, impressed, “I hate to break it to you but I’m fresh out of kevlar.”

“Maybe if I make it really obvious that I need it Batman will just give me some.”

“Obvious how?”

“I could wear a crop top.”

Harper cackled “It doesn’t get much more unprotected than that! I thought you wanted to impress him.”

“I want to impress him with how badly I need a kevlar vest. Besides, he won't want to train me if he thinks I’ve got it all figured out already.”

“Fair enough.”

***

She was about halfway up the hill (okay maybe it did deserve to be called a mountain, her legs were burning) when she stopped. The road continued on, winding around the side of the hill, but the tire treads veered off and abruptly stopped. She could see no fault in the hillside, no sign of any hidden entrances or secret doors but this had to be it so she settled into the brush to wait.

She hated waiting. God, how long did the bat usually stay out for? She was just starting to think maybe she’d been wrong when the sound of dirt crunching under tires caught her attention. Stephanie startled from her half doze, her neck popping as she moved for what felt like the first time in hours. No headlights cut through the dark but she heard the car approach, its engine almost silent. Shifting forward slightly, she tried to make out shapes through the branches. She felt more than saw the side of the mountain (it had earned the title) open up, the vibration shook the pebbles under her feet, until finally there was her entrance, like a black maw ready to swallow her. Or swallow the sleek black vehicle that sped past and disappeared into the void. The mountainside vibrated again as the opening began to close once more. Stephanie scrambled out of the bush, losing a few strands of hair to the thicket, and dove for the opening. She just barely cleared the jaws before they slammed closed behind her and she was plunged into total darkness. 

Step 2.5: don't get lost in the endless maze of tunnels Batman calls home.

Why hadn’t she brought a flashlight? They’d been so thorough! That was one of the most basic tools out there, how the fuck had she not thought to bring a flashlight? They’d had a whiteboard and everything!

The whiteboard had been Steph’s idea. She’d stood before it proudly and pointed out various bullet points with the broken half of a yardstick. “After years of study, copious amounts of research, and evidence gathered from Nightwing and Robin themselves. I have concluded that the requirements for being a Robin are as follows:”

  1. Ability to spout snarky commentary and witty one-liners amidst high stress environments. (Peace of cake.)
  2. Complete fearlessness in the face of violent lunatics. (I used to live with my father so that ones easy.)
  3. Daddy issues. (See above.)
  4. Gymnastic experience.( I’ve got skillz.)
  5. Deductive reasoning. (I watched Sherlock.)
  6. At least one dead parent. (A work in progress.)
  7. A strong moral code and a need for justice that borders on insanity (also a work in progress, see above.)
  8. Short black hair and blue eyes
  9. A dick



Harper contemplated the list before her. “Robin has blue eyes?”

“Like limpid tears.” Steph said solemnly. Harper snorted.

“Nightwing too?”

“Yup. Although his are less limpid and more insipid.”

Harper snorted again then turned thoughtful, “Huh, is that it? Wasn’t there another one? I could have sworn there were more than two Robins.”

“I’m pretty sure there's only two. Nightwing ran off to Bludhaven like five years ago, and my Robin got the gig two years after that.”

“You sure there wasn’t another one inbetween? Cause I swear there wasn’t that big a gap between Robins.”

Steph shrugged, “I think we’d know if there was another Boy Wonder running around somewhere.” 

Harper hummed like she didn’t quite agree but moved on “Well you’ve got most of the list down, those last two are just technicalities. If he says no, you can sue him for discrimination.”

Of course, number ten on the list clearly should have been a utility belt full of useful gadgets! Like flashlights! Whatever, Steph was a big girl, she could handle a little darkness. She pushed to her feet and started blindly groping her way down the tunnel. 

Step three: convince Batman (and don’t get murdered for breaking into his secret lair).

It was pure luck that she made it through the tunnels without tripping and breaking her nose on something but she made it. She almost cried out in joy when she saw the faint glow of the cave up ahead. Instead of sprinting towards it like she so dearly wanted to, she slowed and crept as quietly as possible past the Batmobile until she could peer around it into the rest of the cavern. It was homey, as far as natural caves in the hearts of mountains full of super secret vigilante stuff went. It looked lived in, which was more than she could say for the mansion up above. There was a table with broken equipment scattered across it, a kitchenette displaying several suspicious beakers and vials plus a coffee maker, and a bank of monitors mounted into the wall above a large desk scattered with various papers and old coffee mugs. Before it all sat the Batman himself. 

_ Well, here goes nothing. _

She leapt up, did a handspring off the hood of the car and cartwheeled to a stop in the middle of the room with a flourish of her new cape. Batman was on his feet and facing her with a batarang in hand before her feet even touched the ground. An alarm blared overhead.

“Hi I’m Stephanie Brown, formerly Spoiler, as you know. But what you don’t know is I am going to be the next Robin!” she brandished her most winning smile, and waited.

The blank eyes of the bat cowl stared back at her, expressionless. The alarm stopped. He put away the batarang. 

“No.”

“I thought you might say that so I came prepared,” she pulled out her phone, “I can prove to you that not only will I be the next Robin, I will be the best Robin you’ve ever had!”

“NO.”

“Just hear me out, please?” She begged. 

He said nothing but he didn’t try to stop her either so she plowed on.

“From my time as Spoiler I have plenty of hands on experience taking on the criminal underground.” She pulled up a video Harper had found for her, parking lot security footage that showed her kicking some goons ass. “I know every street in this city like the back of my hand. And every villain in it.” She pulled up another video of Harper quizzing her on locations and Stephanie rattling off directions and fun trivia like which gangs owned them and what kind of pastries they prefered. “I can fit puns into any conversation and  _ spoiler _ alert, I'm known for  _ robin _ the spotlight.” 

Batman did not look amused. 

She continued.“I have a gymnastic background,” here she showed a picture of herself on a balance beam, age twelve, “as well as some pretty dope vehicle proficiency,” she pulled up a video of a dirt bike race she’d won last summer. Finally she put her phone away and faced him, her back straight and shoulders squared. “I’m passionate about justice and I know this city is a shithole but it's  _ my _ shithole and damnit, I want to DO something about it.” she finally stopped for breath. Batman said nothing. She stared down the cowl's blank eyes with defiance. “In order to do that, I need training. I came to you because I respect you and I believe in what you do but if you won’t train me I’ll find someone who will.”

When he finally spoke, it wasn’t what she was expecting. “What are you wearing?”

She only hesitated a moment before cheerily announcing “It's my robin costume! I made it myself. What do you think? Do I look ready to catch criminals?”

“You look ready to catch a cold.” he grunted. “We’ll have Alfred take your measurements in the morning.”

“Sooo… is that a yes?”

“It's a maybe.”

“YES!” she leapt into the air in joy.

“We’ll try this but you’re on probation. I reserve the right to rescind my offer at any time.”

“I won't let you down!” she could have hugged him!

If she didn’t know any better shed swear there was the slightest curve of a smile on his lips.

“Stephanie Brown, welcome to the Batcave.”


End file.
